Intercourse in Television and Film

The Presentation of Explicit Sex Acts

Edited by Lindsay Coleman and Carol Siegel - Contributions by Lindsay Coleman; Sara Janssen; Tim Palmer; Carol Siegel; Kyle Sittig; Amber Strother; Evangelos Tziallas and Connor Winterton

As many critics and theorists have noted, non-pornographic films, documentaries, and quality television series have increasingly included explicit sex scenes since the 1990s, some of such scenes featuring the performance of actual sex acts. The incidence of sex in narratively powerful, resonant visual media can no longer be dismissed as a trend. What was once an aesthetic weapon in the arsenal of provocateurs is now frequently integrated seamlessly into the mise-en-scène and exposition of widely viewed and culturally significant films and television series. Intercourse in Television and Film: The Presentation of Explicit Sex Acts analyzes the aesthetic and narrative contexts for the visual media presentation of the sexual act, both those which are non-simulated and those which are explicit to that point that their simulation is brought into question by the viewer. In this book, questions involving the performance choices of actors, the framing and editing of the sex act, and the director's attempts at integrating sexuality into the overall narrative structure as well as their effects are explored.

Lexington Books

Pages: 202 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½

978-1-4985-5510-4 • Hardback • March 2018 • $100.00 • (£77.00)

978-1-4985-5511-1 • eBook • March 2018 • $95.00 • (£73.00)

Subjects: Language Arts & Disciplines / Communication Studies, Social Science / Gay Studies, Social Science / Media Studies, Social Science / Pornography, Social Science / Human Sexuality

Intercourse in Television and Film

The Presentation of Explicit Sex Acts

Hardback

eBook

Summary

As many critics and theorists have noted, non-pornographic films, documentaries, and quality television series have increasingly included explicit sex scenes since the 1990s, some of such scenes featuring the performance of actual sex acts. The incidence of sex in narratively powerful, resonant visual media can no longer be dismissed as a trend. What was once an aesthetic weapon in the arsenal of provocateurs is now frequently integrated seamlessly into the mise-en-scène and exposition of widely viewed and culturally significant films and television series. Intercourse in Television and Film: The Presentation of Explicit Sex Acts analyzes the aesthetic and narrative contexts for the visual media presentation of the sexual act, both those which are non-simulated and those which are explicit to that point that their simulation is brought into question by the viewer. In this book, questions involving the performance choices of actors, the framing and editing of the sex act, and the director's attempts at integrating sexuality into the overall narrative structure as well as their effects are explored.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 202 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½

978-1-4985-5510-4 • Hardback • March 2018 • $100.00 • (£77.00)

978-1-4985-5511-1 • eBook • March 2018 • $95.00 • (£73.00)

Subjects: Language Arts & Disciplines / Communication Studies, Social Science / Gay Studies, Social Science / Media Studies, Social Science / Pornography, Social Science / Human Sexuality

Author

Lindsay Coleman is independent scholar.

Carol Siegel is professor of English and cultural studies at Washington State University Vancouver.

Table of Contents

Introduction

PART ONE: Sex and Cinematic Traditions

Chapter One: Fine Arts and Ugly Arts: Blue Is the Warmest Color, Abdellatif Kechiche’s Corporeal State of the Nation
Tim Palmer
Chapter Two: The Heroine’s Journey: Taboo Sex and Characterization in Dogtooth
Lindsay Coleman

PART TWO: Sex in Queer Cinema

Chapter Three: Blurred Lines: The Case of Stranger by the Lake
Connor Winterton
Chapter Four: Documenting Everyday Male Intimacies in Contemporary Queer Cinema
Sarah Janssen

PART THREE: Sex Documentary/Docudrama

Chapter Five: Cruising the Interior. Leather Bar: Gay Sex, Then and Then Again
Evangelos Tziallas
Chapter Six: Heterotopias of Confession: Whores’ Glory, Sex, and Dispossession
Kyle Sittig

PART FOUR: Sex on Television

Chapter Seven: “Monsters all, are we not?”: Sex and the Human Connection in Penny Dreadful
Amber Strother
Chapter Eight: Two Funerals and a Wedding: Not So Nice Jewish Girls in Transparent and Broad City
Carol Siegel

Index
About the Editors and Contributors

Reviews

All in all, this collection of essays succeeds in providing in-depth investigations of rich cultural texts, which often speak to one another and build an engaging nexus of ideas and approaches for the study of sex acts in contemporary visual culture. The case study approach makes sense since it is often the case that intense debates are activated around the controversy caused by a particular example of popular culture.
— Historical Journal of Film, Radio, & Television

Long overdue, this brilliant anthology asks exactly how and why we are seeing explicit sex acts, not in pornography, but throughout visual culture. Like a previous era’s attention to censorship and the Production Code, Intercourse in Television and Film offers rich historical, material, and cultural frameworks for its close-ups of sex scenes and provocative analyses of their meanings. Beautifully written and rigorously theorized, these essays comprise a bold and important new overview of a phenomenon that demands interpretation.
— Linda Mizejewski, The Ohio State University